I've been doing a dance between avoiding this post and really wanting to write it for some time now. I want to write it because I think it's important. I want to make it public because I think it may help others. I want to avoid it because it's personal. I want to avoid it because I don't want to sound overly dramatic. Deep breath... here it goes.
Everyone knows war hurts. It hurts physically. It hurts mentally. It hurts emotionally. It hurts relationships. It hurts the ones left behind, as well as the ones who have to go. Some people who have gone to war before would like to claim that the shorter "less dangerous" missions of recent are nothing to whine about. I agree that as a wife, the communication we had was much better than what spouses before me had. My husband agrees that the intensity of the violence he experienced was minuscule compared to past missions. I have no desire to get into a pissing contest about who had/has it worse. All of it plain sucks and all of it is a unique experience to each individual.
I experienced extreme loneliness while my husband was away. It was the kind of loneliness that I didn't even understand fully until it went away. It wasn't the kind of loneliness that could be filled with busyness and friends. This kind of loneliness is the kind you experience when a part of you is missing. Amputees learn to be completely functional, even excelling and thriving, but something is still missing. I don't want to cheapen the horror of going through that kind of physical and emotional trauma, but that's the best I can do to explain how I felt. I made do. I told myself all the "right" things. However, the man I am bound to legally, physically, covenantally, emotionally, spiritually... was gone. I often try to minimize what I felt because once again I know it could be worse. He came back. It wasn't permanent. I never want to be dramatic, nor do I want pity. But part of the healing process is allowing oneself to go to the depths, to be true to what one was experiencing, and that's what I'm trying to do here.
There are moments when I know I'm experiencing healing from that loneliness. My cognizance of it comes it waves. Just as the loneliness was the most overwhelming at night, the realization of healing creeps in during those dark, quiet moments. It comes with falling asleep next to the love of my life, night after night. It sweeps over me while he prays for our dinner. It seeps into the nooks and crannies of my heart when he makes me laugh uncontrollably. Unfortunately, healing isn't exactly a linear process and sometimes it isn't the only thing that creeps, sweeps, and seeps.
Sometimes the hurting comes back. It comes with news of a friend whose husband just got deployment orders. It makes no sense for me to be crying about someone else's deployment reality, except that it was and will be again my reality. It's that fear of the unknown and the feeling of the sweet, precious time together just slipping through the cracks of your angry, clenched fist. It all comes back because of some trigger, some illogical response to a stimulus. You can't make sense of it. You can either fight the current, or just ride the wave. As someone who grew up on the beach, I can tell you that the undercurrent will always win. I'm learning the skill of emotional surfing.
Healing isn't some neat flow chart or even a circular cycle. It's more like a plate of spaghetti, everything is messily intertwined. Just as I'm healing from deployment, so is my soldier. I've tried to stick to writing about my experiences, and not about him, but his healing is a huge part of mine. Things like him whispering,"It's like I never left" sew up little holes in my heart. However, his strong reaction to loud noises reminds me of the hurt that war can leave behind. Somethings may never be completely healed, but we've gone from needing to sit down and check his heart rate after loud noises to just a couple of deep breaths to let it pass.
To those of you who are at the beginning stages of the healing process or may be are just hurting, please know that you're not alone. Also know that sometimes just some love and time are all you need to seal up the empty places in your heart. Know that it's not always permanent. There is hope. To those who need a little extra help, don't feel like a failure. Don't feel weak. The levels to which we experience situations vary and like I said in the beginning, we each have our own experience. One is not lesser than the other, just different. Do what you need to do to get the help you need if it's more than a little separation anxiety or jumping at loud noises. We are lucky that that's all we are going through and are fully aware that the situation could be so much more devastating. And to those of you who are about to face a deployment, don't be frightened. A lot of positive and wonderful changes happened because of deployment, but that's for another post.
